Four years ago President Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, had this to say about gasoline prices: "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Right now petrol sells in the $8 to $9 per-gallon range there.

Yeterday Chu was queried by the House Appropriations Committee. In response to a question about the department he leads and whether it has the goal of lowering gasoline prices, Chu reponded, "No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil..."

I give him credit for honesty. But Obama and Chu's dream of a solar and wind power America depends upon making fossil fuels so expensive that then--and only then--green energy makes economic sense.

In his recent awful offal of a Huffington Post column, Larry Doyle insulted one billion of his fellow humans by calling the Roman Catholic Church a "The Jesus-Eating Cult."

I don't know Doyle, but his onetime collaborator on his Escaped from the Zoo and Pogo comic strips, Neal Sternecky, managed the Champaign, Illinois apartment building I lived in for a year while we were both students at the University of Illinois--we also had an advertising class together. Sternecky, like myself, is a graduate of Carl Sandburg High School--although I didn't know him them.

Because I've kept an eye on Sternecky's career--I've also had a cursory interest in Doyle. That acidic HuffPo column is not an aberration. Doyle's Daily Illini solo pieces were the type of mean-spirited rants you find on leftist sites such as Democrats Underground and of course HuffPo. My memory is like a bear trap--I distinctly remember a DI mock interview of Doyle where he mentioned that he wanted to masturbate during the interchange and later suggested that he desired to use razor blades to further his pleasure. Later Doyle tried to get the interviewer to admit that he was an asshole.

I agree, he is one.

As for Sternecky, he was the better half of that collaboration. He later discovered that he could write Pogo--which was later discontinued--without that distinctly not-funny asshole.

Yesterday Doyle issued a non-apology on HuffPo. He's a real...well, you know...

Last week I wrote about T. Boone Pickens donating nearly a half-million dollars to liberal think tank Center for American Progress so they can promote its idea of clean energy, which includes natural gas--a power source the billionaire hopes to make even more money on. Pickens has a pet piece of legislation--the NAT GAS Act, which proposes subsidies for his latest love.

The natural gas shale revolution is a blessing for the U.S., but its very abundance and low cost mean that it could be a commercially viable substitute for oil without taxpayer handouts. At current prices, a gallon of transportation fuel from natural gas costs about one-third to one-half less a gallon of gas from oil. That's a big nonsubsidized cost advantage.

Mr. Pickens claims that the subsidies are merely to finance the transition to natural gas vehicles, and that they will be temporary. But there were no subsidies for Henry Ford to build the Model T, and no tax incentives for gas stations in every town in America.

As for "energy independence," taxpayer subsidies have a miserable record of reducing reliance on foreign oil. In the 1970s the feds spent some $2 billion on synthetic fuels, which were a commercial bust. Ethanol was sold as a path to energy "security," but 30 years and more than $40 billion later it still can't compete without governmental support. The two-decade federal nourishment of solar, wind and other non-hydro renewables has cost tens of billions of dollars, yet they still provide just 3.6% of U.S. electricity.

The history of energy subsidies is that they become an industrial and political addiction that is difficult to stop, no matter the results, and may even inhibit innovation and profitability by providing a crutch.

The NAT GAS Act stink bomb applies Chevy Volt-like credits for trucks--from $7,500 and $65,000 per vehicle--for trucks converting from diesel to natural gas-powered engines. Actually, this is worse than the Volt handouts.

Filling stations would get credits too--and there would be a 50 cent a gallon credit for purchasing natural gas.

None of this is needed. Haven't we learned any lessons from the Volt and Solyndra debacles?

Statements made by commenters on this blog do not necessarily match the views of the web site owner--the comments are unmoderated. Not deleting a post deemed offensive by others does not mean an endorsement of that comment. Report any offensive comments to the above e-mail address.